《英美文学史及经典作品选读》分上、下两册，旨在梳理英美文学史，同时包括各个文学时期主要作家的介绍及其经典作品选读。英国文学史共7章，包括：古英语文学、中世纪英国文学、英国文艺复兴时期、新古典主义时期、浪漫主义时期、维多利亚时期和现代英国文学。美国文学史共4章，包括：殖民时期美国文学、美国浪漫主义时期、美国现实主义时期、美国现代主义时期。各章节分三大模块：该时期历史背景、文学特点、主要代表作家介绍及其代表作品选读。作家介绍部分包括“作者生平”和“文学成就与文学特色”两大模块。有些章节和作家涉及文学术语，对这些文学术语的解释穿插在相应的位置。
本套教材既适合高校英语专业和翻译专业选用，也可为参加研招考试的专业学生提供一个便于复习的版本，同时还可供广大中学英语教师及具有一定英语基础的英语自学者和英美文学爱好者作为进一步研习的读物。
本书是其中的上册，由宋文玲主编。

Part I Old English Literature (450-1066)
1.1 Historical Background
1.2 Literary Characteristics
1.3 Old English Poetry
1.3.1 The Religious Group
1.3.2 The Secular Group
1.3.3 Beowulf
Part 2 Medieval English Literature (1066-1485)
2.1 Historical Background
2.2 Literary Characteristics
2.3 Major Writers & Representative Writings
2.3.1 Geoffrey Chaucer
Part 3 English Renaissance (1485-1660)
3.1 Historical Background
3.2 Literary Characteristics
3.3 Major Writers & Representative Writings
3.3.1 Edmund Spenser
3.3.2 Christopher Marlowe
3.3.3 William Shakespeare
3.3.4 Francis Bacon
3.3.5 John Donne
3.3.6 John Milton
3.3.7 John Bunyan
Part 4 English Neoclassicism (1660-1798)
4.1 Historical Background
4.2 Literary Characteristics
4.3 Major Writers and Representative Writings
4.3.1 Daniel Defoe
4.3.2 Alexander Pope
4.3.3 Jonathan Swift
4.3.4 Henry Fielding
4.3.5 Samuel Johnson
4.3.6 Richard Brinsley Sheridan
4.3.7 Thomas Gray
Part 5 English Romanticism (1798-1832)
5.1 Historical Background
5.2 Literary Characteristic
5.3 Major Writers & Representative Writings
5.3.1 William Blake
5.3.2 William Wordsworth
5.3.3 Samuel Taylor Coleridge
5.3.4 George Gordon Byron
5.3.5 Percy Bysshe Shelly
5.3.6 John Keats
5.3.7 Jane Austen
Part 6 The Victorian Age (1836-1901)
6.1 Historical Background
6.2 Literary Characteristics
6.3 Major Writers and Representative Writings
6.3.1 Charles Dickens
6.3.2 William Makepeace Thackeray
6.3.3 Charlotte Bronte and Emily Bronte
6.3.4 George Eliot
6.3.5 Alfred Tennyson
6.3.6 Robert Browning
6.3.7 Thomas Hardy
Part 7 The Modern Period (1901 Onward)
7.1 Historical Background
7.2 Literary Characteristics
7.3 Major Writers & Representative Writings
7.3.1 George Bernard Shaw
7.3.2 John Galsworthy
7.3.3 William Butler Yeats
7.3.4 David Herbert Lawrence
7.3.5 Thomas Steams Eliot
7.3.6 James Joyce
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